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I follow his stare.

The window is open. Six inches of black gap, cold pouring through it.

I didn't open that window. I never open that window. It sticks, the latch is painted shut, and I've complained about it out loud to at least four customers.

The room smells like turned earth. Like a garden after rain. Like something that belongs outside and isn't.

I reach for the lamp. My fingers slap the shade twice before they find the switch.

Light.

Mud on the floorboards.

Not a smear. Prints. Bare feet, long and narrow, pressed into the old wood in wet brown. They start under the open window. They cross the room in a slow, even line.

They stop beside my pillow.

I definitely scream this time.

The door doesn't open so much as explode.

Not really. It only feels that way, because Gage Corbett fills the whole frame with a tire iron in one fist and murder on his face.

Barefoot. Gray sweatpants. No shirt.

Of course.

Apparently shirts are optional during a home invasion.

"What happened?"

Not a question. I point. Words have left me.

His gaze drops to the footprints, and everything soft in him turns to stone.

He's across the room before I finish blinking. Under the bed. Inside the closet. Behind the curtain, along the sill, into the dark past the glass. He moves like a man who's done this before and is expected to do it again.

Then he stops over the prints and does a strange thing.

He tips his head back and breathes in. Slow. Deep. The way you'd smell the air for smoke.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking."

"With your nose?"

His jaw sets. He doesn't answer that one either.

I climb out of bed. He's beside me in an instant, one big hand hovering like he can't decide whether he's allowed to touch me.

"Stay there."

"In the room with the ghost footprints? Hell, no!"

"Maren."

"I'm getting really tired of being told what to do in my own house."